


Interlude

by hubrisandwax



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bullying, Homophobic Language, Jimmy Feels, Jimmy Novak's life, M/M, i guess uh major character death but not really, it has a happy ending, jimmy has one of the saddest arcs in spn and no one can tell me otherwise, not really sure what else to tag lol, one entire fic of jimmy feels, really - Freeform, repressed homosexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 00:57:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1585778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hubrisandwax/pseuds/hubrisandwax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your life was an interlude in the space of their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partialdifferential](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partialdifferential/gifts).



> ... Say hallelujah, say goodnight, say it over  
> the canned music and your feet won’t stumble,  
> his face getting larger, the rest blurring  
> on every side. And angels, about twelve angels,  
> angels knocking on your head right now, hello  
> hello, a flash in the sky, would you like to  
> meet him there, in Heaven? Imagine a room,  
> a sudden glow. Here is my hand, my heart,  
> my throat, my wrist. Here are the illuminated  
> cities at the center of me, and here is the center  
> of me, which is a well that we  
> can drink from, but I can’t go through with it.  
> I just don’t want to die anymore.
> 
> \- _Saying Your Names_ , **Richard Siken**

You remember the first time you kissed a boy. You were fifteen, and it was during a game of Truth or Dare. His mouth was sticky and sweet and tasted like Coca-Cola as it pressed against yours, hand a heavy pressure resting against your cheek. The kiss itself only lasted a few moments before he pulled away, but you were left wide-eyed and breathless with mussed hair and the biggest hard-on you’d ever had.

His name was Karl.

But of course he laughed it off, running a hand through his own straw coloured hair, not at all affected. You wanted to cry, then and there, but instead you shuffled back to your place in the circle, surreptitiously adjusted your pants, and pretended to laugh along with them.

“How gross,” Karl’d commented, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

That night, you thought of narrow hips and broad shoulders and a firm grip with your hand wrapped around your cock.

The worst part was that you enjoyed it.

 

***

  
“Homo-Jimmy” was your nickname during high school, which was accompanied by a rude tune that included the words ‘James’, ‘buttfucking’, and ‘trains’.

Your best friend was a kind, quiet boy named Robert. He, too, was considered a social pariah because of his hair lip. Your other friendships inevitably lasted only a few days; every friend you made couldn’t stand the bullying that came with being associated with you.

But Robert gave as good as he got and supported you every opportunity he had. You often felt like you didn’t deserve his friendship; it felt like some kind of forgiveness you certainly hadn’t earned.

He never even asked about the rumours. You were greedy for his affection.

 

***

 

Come to think of it, you never did tell your parents why you came home at least once a week with a black eye and a busted lip. You hoped they thought it was because you liked comic books, got straight As, and weren’t much good at wrestling.

 

***

 

The second boy came shortly after your first girlfriend, Clara, had broken up with you. You’d lasted a week. She was interested in working her way through all the boys your age in the church choir; you weren’t particularly interested in girls but wanted to appease your parents.

His name was Dean, and he was in town only for a few weeks. He had an old American muscle car he used to drive around the streets with his little brother in the front seat next to him. You were in the same History class; his desk was adjacent to yours. He smelt like leather and cheap aftershave and a little like smoke, and was so beautiful it hurt to look at him, sometimes.

“I don’t usually like boys, you know what I mean?” Dean had said as he worked the buckle open on your jeans. “I’m not, you know." He spoke the word as if it were a curse. "Gay.”

“Okay,” you’d replied. “I’m not gay, either.”

Dean had smiled. “We’ll be each other’s best kept secret, then.” He proceeded to lick at the seam of your lips, his hands working their way down your torso as your bodies came together. Each time you touched him, it felt like a prayer for salvation, like this boy with an angel’s face could absolve all your sins. Perhaps if you touched him enough, fucked him enough, you could. Maybe all your homosexual desires would be quenched. Maybe you’d stop feeling sick every time you came to the image of a man.

There was no nausea when you were with Dean. He made you feel like what you were doing was right.

You had sex on at least five different occasions during the three weeks he spent in your town. He’d lay you out on the back seat of his car and kiss you like you were worth something, worth more than the awkward, broken smalltown boy you were. Sometimes, when the light caught his face at the right angle, blond hair an illuminated halo at the back of his head, you wondered if he was, indeed, an angel. An angel with a foul mouth who made too many pop-culture references and loved his brother with an intensity that you wished you, too, could be loved.

By the end of those weeks, you thought you were in love. At least, it felt like it.

The night he said good-bye, Dean drove you out to your favourite spot – the cliff overlooking the valley, where the town was so far away that the lights looked like crushed glass on velvet. Your parents thought you were at a Bible study class. He was silent for the entire drive. You wondered if something was wrong - if, perhaps, you’d done something wrong. Had you said the wrong thing at some point? Or, worse, had someone found out? Nausea rolled across your stomach. You felt like you’d done something terrible, like stolen from your parents, or cheated on an exam, until Dean reached across the seat and touched your hand. Just lightly. You stopped shaking; you didn’t even realise you’d lost control of your muscles.

Dean killed the engine and pulled you into a rough kiss as soon as you reached the spot. He pulled away after a few moments, his thumb trailing across your cheekbone, tracing the edge of your jawline, your thick bottom lip. “Jimmy,” he’d murmured, studying your face. Your name always sounded like a prayer falling from his lips, and for the first time in your life, you didn’t resent the nickname. “I really like you.”

But this time, your scalp prickled and your skin burned; you knew what came next.

“There’s a but, isn’t there?” you said, breaking his gaze, pressing your face in to the space between his neck and shoulder. Your words were muffled by skin. His fingertips traced patterns down your spine; his breath was damp against your ear. There always is, with everyone, you wanted to say, but you bit back the words.

“Er, yeah,” he mumbled back. “Dad finished his job. We’re heading outta town tomorrow morning, early. I didn’t want to, you know, leave you or nothin’ without saying bye first.”

You took a deep breath. Dust and Dean’s scent entered your lungs. You felt like you were drowning.

“You okay?” he asked, trying to pull you away, to gauge your reaction, but you clung tightly to his chest. You weren’t ready for this; weren’t ready for Dean to stop making it okay.

But instead you mumbled “fine” and you pressed the word into his clavicle, because if it was seared against Dean’s skin, you could make it true.

You hoped.

The next morning, you walked past the motel on your way home from school. Dean wasn’t in class. The spot the impala had occupied on and off for the last three weeks was empty, and although you had expected it to be, your stomach still throbbed with the sense of loss.

He had your address. You hoped he wrote.

 

***

 

He never did.

***

The next boy you tried to kiss called you a dirty fucking fag and punched you in the face.

 

***

 

The one after that brought you a burger, a drink, and chips, and you let him hold your hand under the table until the diner closed for the evening. You never figured out if it was a date.

 

***

A month after Dean left town, and two after your eighteenth birthday, your mother found your gay porn magazine wedged between the mattress and the bedframe in your room. She’d screamed at you and cried when you got home from school; called you an ‘abomination’, told you that you had an illness, that she hoped God could save you. You remained silent throughout the entire ordeal. Your father stood sentinel by her side, just as wordless as you, but with an expression that spoke volumes.

The conclusion was that you were to spend the summer holidays at a Christian correctional facility: ‘Mercy House’. The pamphlet was laid out on your bed the day school ended, along with a few changes of clothes and a couple of books. You didn’t bother arguing; you knew that your family would never speak to you again if you did, and you couldn’t bear to disappoint your older sister.

The thing you regretted most, though, was not destroying the evidence sooner. You’d purchased the magazine shortly after Dean left, and had tried to seek some semblance of pleasure from it. Instead, it had made you feel guilty and sick; unclean in a way that no amount of bathing could fix.

How could what you’d experienced be considered ‘impure’? Dean was the most sense the world had ever made.

That was the first night you prayed to the Angels.

 

***

 

At the end of that summer, you told your parents you were ‘cured’. That you were ready to go to college and meet the woman of your dreams. Your mother cried, this time with happiness, and your father told you he was proud of you for the first time since you could remember.

You’d learned a lot of things, perhaps not all of them good, and many certainly not what your parents had intended, yet each was an important life lesson. You might not have been cured of ‘gayness’, but you’d learned to pretend. No longer the golden haired, round-faced boy you were six months ago, James Gregory Novak died somewhere after Dean’s departure and your time in the institution, and brown haired, quietly strong Jimmy Novak replaced him.

But right then, as you stood in your front room with family and church friends who were ready to offer you fond farewells, you swallowed the lump in your throat, along with all the things better left unsaid, and turned to face the crowd.

 

***

 

Amelia was in your theology class, second year. She sat next to you on the first day, smelling like gardenias and honey, looking a tiny bit like Dean, if you squinted, so you organised to have coffee with her during the third week of semester.

 

***

 

She asked you if you were a virgin four dates in, and you replied, “Yes, of course,” because sex with a man didn’t count, not really, not for all her intents and purposes, and she smiled back at you.

“I believe in saving myself,” she’d said, and you wanted to ask from what.

But you didn’t.

 

***

 

Sometimes, you felt your family liked her more than you did.

 

***

On the eve of graduation, you got down on one knee in a park overlooking the city, and asked her to be your wife. She accepted with a wide grin set with too many teeth. You felt only mildly guilty; you loved her, of course, but it was more the kind of love one would feel towards a sibling. The kind of love you felt towards Bethany.

You hoped it would improve with the addition of sex to your relationship. That you’d want to sleep with her. That you’d desire more than just her mind and spirit.

The wedding was held in a small church a short drive from your hometown. Every guest said it was beautiful; you felt a little like a part of yourself was dying.

Robert was your Best Man. Bethany was a bridesmaid. Your mother wept; your father smiled. Amelia looked stunning in pure white, her tawny hair bound atop her head, skin milky white and glowing. ‘Do you, James Gregory Novak, take…’

You loved her so intensely that moment you kissed her in front of a church full of people, you felt alight with it (just not the way she deserved).

During the Reception, you were worried that your smile would crack off your face, and you held it like you would a crying child. “I love you so much, James,” Amelia said, whispering the words against your ear as you danced together in the wan moonlight.

“I love you too, Amelia Novak,” you murmured back, and she giggled.

You just wished the words didn’t sound so quite much like a plea for forgiveness.

 

***

  
Your family couldn’t understand why you wanted to move to the Midwest. Resented you because of it, even.

Their love was suffocating. You needed to escape.

 

***

 

Claire was your salvation.

Born at ten o’six on a Wednesday night, she was a tiny, wrinkled thing with blue eyes the same shade as yours and a small shock of tawny hair that stuck up from her head, and she was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen, even red-faced and covered in blood and screaming.

You held her in your arms and she suckled your little finger; you kissed her head, lightly, lightly, brushing your lips against the crown of her head. She smelled like new life.

When you got home a week later, every night she couldn’t sleep and after Amelia had gone to bed, you’d pull her out of the crib and hold her against your chest. Swaddled in blankets and half awake, she breathed tiny, slow breaths against your chest as you walked around the house, rocking her to sleep. You whispered words of encouragement, telling her that you would love her no matter what, that she could love whomever she wanted. You told her about your past with Dean; about how much you hated your job; about your family and church and your prayers to whoever was listening; about how tired you were of lying to everyone.

You hadn’t had sex with Amelia in three months. It had become sanctioned to government holidays and her birthday.

Claire’s only response to your stories was a gurgle, or to snore softly in that way babies do, or to look up at you with protuberant blue eyes that felt as if they were gazing into your soul with what, you hoped, was unconditional love.

 

You certainly loved her more than you’d ever love anything, past or present or future.

 

She’s what you miss most.

 

***

By the time Castiel contacted you, you were ready for an out.

“Are you hiding something, Jimmy?” Amelia said the first time you brought him up. The knife she was holding dropped to the chopping board with a clang, her hands finding their way to her hips. “Because no self-respecting family man would be happy with this.”

You abruptly left the room without a word.

Now, you’re pulling on your coat for the last time. You hoped this was some kind of penance; a way to seek recompense for the actions you took over the last fifteen years.

As you stared at your reflection in the mirror, your gold wedding ring caught the light.

 

***

 

You weren't surprised that Dean didn’t recognise you when he laid eyes on your body (it’s not you, you reminded yourself) again for the first time in forever in that barn in Pontiac, Illinois. No longer a chubby eighteen year old boy with a face like one of those ugly cheribums you see in Renaissance paintings, you now had hair the colour of dark molasses and an actual jawline that was rough with stubble. Your mannerisms were all wrong, too; having no agency over your own body does that. It’s a blessing he thought Castiel’s vessel was a stranger, really.

But that didn’t stop you from wanting to cry when you saw him for the first time in fifteen years. You helped Castiel put him back together from what you remembered of his body, stitching him up with dust and borrowed grace. It was like relearning the lines on a familiar map. Castiel might have wept himself, overcome with your own too-strong emotions, and the tears that fell broke on impact and created more freckles across the top of his shoulders. Castiel promised not to breathe a word of your ‘secret’ to anyone.

And then Dean Winchester was lazarus rising from the grave; a man offered a second chance. He didn’t understand how truly lucky he was.

 

***

Staring at him was like looking at a small sun, his soul burned so bright.

 

***

 

Once you managed to carve out your own little space against Castiel’s Grace, it was bearable.

Being chained to a comet was an accurate description of the sensation when Castiel took incorporeal form. Otherwise, you managed to reach a sort of compromise. That meant you had the ability to frequently tell Cas how attractive Dean’s arse looked in that particular pair of jeans; yell at him for not understanding Dean’s pop-culture references; encourage him to make snarky comments even when it was inappropriate. Castiel reminded you of Robert, in a funny sort of way, and it was a comfort.

A few months into your ‘partnership’, you realised how much, despite the fact he was an angel and Dean was just a human, Castiel had begun to care for Dean. It transcended his Angelic sense of duty, even. You tried to explain to him how his feelings would translate in human terms. However, after a particularly nasty argument involving something to do with Dean sleeping with Anna, and Cas was being particularly obtuse, you yelled at him, “Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you.” It was poetry - you were quoting a line from a gay poet - but you didn’t even care anymore.

“I don’t understand,” Cas had responded darkly, “I don’t sleep,” but you figured he still got the point.

 

***

 

Waking up in your own body, though; now that was probably one of your weirder experiences.

You were dissociated from any physical sensations for so many months. Disconnected from the ability to move your muscles, to feel the breeze against your skin, to taste or touch or smell, and it felt like coming home again. You never realised how much you missed what you took for granted.

You were free.

The world slowly coming into focus, like peeling back the layers from an onion, you said, "My name is Jimmy Novak,” and you watched the flash of recognition, so subtle, flicker across Dean’s face (you wouldn’t have caught it if you didn’t know the planes of it so well).

The burger you were eating was the best thing you'd ever tasted.

Dean said nothing initially, just insisted that you should go back to your family. His voice filtered through the thin motel walls, his tone defensive, as he spoke about you to Sam. You couldn’t stop the bubble of warmth that inflated in your chest.

It wasn’t until Sam was in the shower later that evening, when you and Dean were sitting on your respective beds in the motel room, that he finally spoke.

“I never wrote, did I?” Color dusted his cheeks, and you smiled your first genuine smile and said, “No, but I forgive you.” And you did. If he had written, perhaps you would have lost everything a lot sooner.

“I’m sorry, Jimmy. You deserved better.”

Your smile became tight, then, twitching into a grimace. “That’s not how life works, Dean. No one deserves anything.” Dean laughed at this, his response warm and slightly sad: “God, you sound like Cas,” and that’s when you realised that you were the third wheel here. That Dean no longer wanted you; not you you, at least, perhaps your body, yes, but what he truly wanted was Cas.

He just couldn’t see it yet himself.

And you were okay with this, when you thought about it later, once again strapped to Castiel’s grace. If you couldn’t have Dean, at least your (now best) friend might be able to. The angel with nothing of you but your face. It was okay.

But then and there, you committed the color of Dean’s eyes to your memory. The way his freckles fell across the bridge of his nose and collected over his cheekbones. Matched this face with the one you fell in love with as a boy, and said a silent goodbye.

Sam didn’t catch a clue, luckily. Didn’t seem to realise that the reason his older brother was so keen to get rid of you, to send you back to your family, was because you reminded him of a time he'd probably rather forget. You were an inconvenience. This suited you fine, though, because it allowed you to escape. You needed this.

 

***

 

Claire was even more beautiful than you remembered.

She looked so much like you did as as an eleven year old, but prettier. Similar round face and large blue eyes and golden hair, but infinitely more delicate. You watched her through the window and tried not to cry.

Somehow, you knew you were coming to say a proper goodbye.

 

***

 

Amelia looked accusingly at your right hand where your wedding band used to sit.

Somewhere, along the way, you’d unwittingly become ‘married’ to two hunters and an angel. You were okay with this, too.

And Dean hated seeing you being affectionate with Amelia; you could feel his eyes burning into the back of your head. You didn’t know it was if was because it was you touching someone that wasn’t him, or because you looked like Cas. You pretended that it was the former.

 

***

 

Castiel had changed.

You knew this the instant he threatened to permanently possess Claire. The Castiel you had gotten to know over the past almost year would never have taken a child as a vessel for longer than necessary.

And now you were dying, bleeding out on the floor of a dirty warehouse. The penultimate moment; this was what your sacrifice had been building to. Everything was agony.

“Take Me, please,” you begged, desperate, your vision turning red, and you’d never wanted anything more in your life. Even if it meant an eternity of servitude, you’d take it as long as it meant keeping your daughter safe.

You hoped she took your sacrifice as an illustration of your love for her; a bittersweet goodbye.

 

***

 

Castiel repressed your soul with his Grace, and this time, you really did feel as if you were constantly chained to a comet. Days; weeks; months; years could have passed. You had no concept of time.

…. until you were suddenly thrust back into your body violently in a shock of white light.

“God,” was Castiel’s only answer. “We died.” He said nothing else, but he left you unshackled from his Grace, and you finally feel like you could breathe again.

 

***

 

You and Cas both spent the next year falling further for Dean, figuratively and literally. You managed to pull back when it became too much.

 

Cas didn’t.

 

***

 

Sharing a physical body with an almost-human Cas was not an experience you wanted to repeat. You both became claustrophobic, fighting for space, figuratively strangling each other. He had grown to be like a brother to you, but having his thoughts and feelings bleed into yours until you were almost one consciousness was just too much. You couldn’t wait for him to become an angel again. His feelings for Dean were almost worse than the bitterness that tasted of ammonia and waxen oranges and colored almost every one of his thoughts.

He needed his Grace like you’d once needed air.

 

***

On May 13th, 2010, you died.

You were encouraging Cas to yell, “Hey, assbutt,” and to throw the molotov cocktail at Lucifer, and then the next moment you were disembodied light floating up, up, up. Dean was below, and you watched him getting beaten by Lucifer, but it was like everything was being filtered through liquid. You could no longer feel anything, emotionally or physically. Where was Cas? Surely he should be here, protecting Dean, trying to fight against Lucifer, but -

Oh, how you’d been so wrong. Death was an ugly thing, you realized then as you slowly drifted from everything you knew. Your body had been destroyed, along with Cas, and you were dying. Dead. A soul comprised of energy and light; nothing more.

Death was ugly, you’d decided, because in those final moments you hovered suspended above Earth, you understood the gravity of all your decisions. Of your life. You’d never grow old; never be anything more than some dude who sold advertisement time to AM radio; never be anything else than what you were in this very moment. Claire would grow without you. The world wouldn’t stop spinning. The only person who you weren’t dead to already was gone, now, too. The tragedy of death is not death itself; it’s what we have failed, or haven't failed, to do with our lives.

The world faded out like an ageing movie reel, and you were met with nothingness.

 

***

 

You woke in an unfamiliar room. Sunlight dribbled through the curtains, casting strange shapes across your duvet as you returned to consciousness. It was awfully quiet. _You’re dead_ , your mind helpfully supplied. _It can’t get any worse than this._

The room was very nondescript. Painted Sunshine Yellow, there was a wardrobe, a bedside table, and a dresser. One window, covered by a venetian blind, was closed behind you; the bedspread was robin’s egg blue; everything smelt clean, and a little like the washing powder you mother used; and you were still dressed in the suit you died in.

Easing out of the bed, you crept forward until you could press your ear against the door. You heard the gush of a faucet; some footsteps; the low hum of voices. Carefully, you pushed it open.

“Sleeping Beauty awakens.”

“Oh, shut your mouth, Victor.”

Your door opened on to a corridor. There, other doors just like yours were lined up side by side, much like a hotel.

“Um, am I… alive?” you muttered to yourself, stepping hesitantly out of the room. A snort came from your right.

“You’re in the Roadhouse, mate,” the deeper voice said. “In Heaven. Definitely dead.”

“You must have known the Winchesters,” the other voice said, almost apologetically.

You followed the corridor to the end, where it opened out on to… what looked like a bar. Two people were in the room; one behind the counter, the other sitting on a stool, nursing what appeared to be an orange juice.

“I’m Ellen,” the person behind the bar said, “and this is Victor.”

“Jimmy - uh, James - Novak,” you replied.

“You can come closer, James.”

You walked forward until you reached the bar, and sat on the stool next to Victor.

“This is all very… unusual.” You frowned. You felt like an actor in some sort of twisted theatre production. “Are you sure this is… Heaven? I would’ve placed money on Hell as my final resting place, to be honest.”

Victor laughed, nudging your shoulder gently with his own. He was very attractive. “Definitely Heaven. This is just an unusual part of it. Ash’s set it up so anyone we can find anyone who's been useful the Winchesters, in case they’re needed, or something. I dunno.” He takes a gulp of his orange juice. “Fucked if I know.”

“Usually Heaven is where you relive all your best experiences, over and over, for the rest of eternity,” Ellen added, picking up a glass and starting to polish its rim. “But Ash’s somehow worked it so we can move around individual people’s Heavens. It’s been particularly useful.”

“So who were you to the Winchesters?” Victor asked. “Ellen was their surrogate mom, and I was a cop who helped them on a case.”

Ellen frowned at Victor, but said nothing.

“Um, I was an angel’s vessel.”

They both looked surprised. “Castiel’s vessel?”

“Er, yes.”

“Castiel’s dead?”

“I’m… not sure?”

“What about Sam and Dean?” Victor asked words hurried.

“They’re not here, so evidently they’re fine, idiot,” Ellen murmured, but she sounded unconvinced. You shrugged.

“We can -”

You were interrupted, then, by a figure materialising in the middle of the room.

“Jimmy,” Cas said, stepping forward. “Your soul is safe,” and he came closer, peering at you, completely ignoring your personal space.

“Uh, you must be Cas,” Victor said, pulling away. Cas stared at back at him unblinkingly. “Nice to… meet you?”

“Yes,” Cas says to Victor, then turned back to face you, “we might have a problem.”

"What can we do?" Ellen interjected, pulling a rifle from under the counter.

And this marks the beginning of the rest of your death.

 

***

 

Slowly but surely, you manage to distance yourself from your feelings for Dean. Much like many people’s first love, you don’t think you’ll ever be completely over him, not really, but your love fades like a sepia-toned photograph and you lock the feelings away.

After what you approximate to be a month in Heaven-time, you start dating Victor. Coincidentally, much like the first time you kissed a boy, it’s triggered by a game of Truth or Dare, except this time, instead of pulling away, your partner moans “don’t stop” against your mouth. You discover that you have a surprising amount in common. Dates take place in your Heaven or his, and it’s wonderful to be able to begin a relationship without judgement. Everyone at the Roadhouse is in full support, as long as you promise to, “keep the noise down, boys. You’re not exactly quiet,”and break up amicably. Plus, the sex is excellent.

You have found people who will accept you no matter who you love. These are your new family members.

Castiel visits, on occasion, bringing reports from down below. He’s still one of your very best friends. You learn about the shit with Crowley, about Purgatory, about angel civil wars, and you lose him for a little while there, but he comes back with stories of Leviathan and Demon tablets and closing the Gates of Hell. Sometimes, you share a burger and a beer. He tells you he’ll take you to see Claire at least once a month, and he keeps his promises. Your family is safe. Amelia marries a widowed doctor she meets at Church; Claire is growing to be an admirable woman. Some days, Cas gives you agency, and you take her out for ice cream, or to the movies, and hear about her adventures with her friends, or her assignments, or the person she has a crush on. Cas may not be able to hold you for long, but it’s something.

 

***

 

Back before he doubted his father, Castiel told you that God loved all his children; that he had plans for every one of you. You didn’t understand then, but you think you get it, now. You get that everyone has their place in this world, and even if yours was simply sharing your body with a divine being, a wavelength of celestial intent, you are pleased with what you achieved. You understand Humanity lives on because of your sacrifice. A domino effect. The only fate we have is rooted in our decisions, and those of that around us; we ultimately choose our own destinies.

We may not be special snowflakes, but we all have our impact. You chose to sacrifice everything to save the world when you didn’t even know that was the consequence at the moment of decision. Your name will be sung by angels for generations to come.

You are not wrong, or ill, or an abomination because of what you chose to be. You are loved. You are just right.

**Author's Note:**

> Title was taken from a London Grammar song of the same name. Quote is taken from Richard Siken's poem _Litany In Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out_.
> 
> This was originally intended to be a fluffy Jimmy/Dean/Cas college 'verse fic, but instead it became this monster, inspired by discussions on Tumblr and Chris's headcanons. Thank you so much to Guu, AJ, and Jo for working through this with me. I'd be lost without you.


End file.
